Religious or Philosophical Beliefs

Detects religious or philosophical belief information in person-linked membership, patient, workforce, census, pastoral-care, and accommodation records. The detector recognises explicit belief, affiliation, observance, denomination, and structured religion-field terminology, then raises confidence only for person records and populated belief or accommodation statements. Religious or philosophical beliefs are protected under GDPR Article 9 and Australian anti-discrimination and privacy law. Topic-grade detector, low confidence by design.

Type: keyword_list
Engine: universal
Confidence: low
Confidence justification: Low by design. Religious or philosophical belief is a GDPR Article 9 special category with no fixed format, so it is detected purely by topic vocabulary. Generic words like "believe" or "religion" appear constantly in non-sensitive prose (corporate values statements, educational content); the regex is scoped to full disclosure phrases only, and hits should be paired with corroborative keywords (faith, congregation, worship) to raise precision.
Jurisdictions: global, au, eu
Regulations: GDPR, Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth)
Frameworks: ISO 27001, NIST CSF, SOC 2
Data categories: pii
Scope: broad
Risk rating: 7

Pattern

(?i)\b(?:religious\s+(?:or\s+philosophical\s+)?beliefs?|philosophical\s+beliefs?|religious\s+affiliations?|faith\s+affiliations?|belief\s+systems?|faith\s+traditions?|religious\s+(?:observance|preference|denominations?|conversion\s+record)|place\s+of\s+worship|(?:religion|faith|denomination)\s*(?::|(?:field|code|response)))\b

Corroborative evidence keywords

faith, congregation, worship, clergy, denomination, doctrine, spiritual, religion

Proximity: 300 characters

Should match

Religious affiliation disclosure topic pending review. — Exact 65 discovery probe - belief topic without a data-subject record
Employee file includes a religious affiliation field. — Exact 75 probe - person-record context without a populated belief response
Patient record: religious affiliation recorded as Hindu; denomination: Shaivism. — Exact 85 probe - person record plus populated faith attribution
The intake form records religious affiliation under section 4. — Religious affiliation phrase present
Profile notes his faith tradition and place of worship. — Faith tradition / place of worship terms present
HR file documents a religious conversion record from the chaplaincy referral. — Religious conversion record term present
The census field asks respondents to state their religious beliefs voluntarily. — Religious beliefs phrase present
Admission record captures religion: Sikh. — Structured religion label in a person record

Should not match

We believe in transparent pricing for all customers. — Generic corporate "believe", not a belief-system disclosure
The museum exhibit covered world religions through history. — Topical/educational mention, no personal disclosure phrase
Religious studies 101 is a required elective this semester. — Academic course listing, no disclosure phrase
Public policy document reports aggregate congregation demographics. — Public aggregate material is not a person-linked belief disclosure
Sample template: patient record with stated faith Example Faith. — Adjacent template language is not a populated belief record
Patient record lists a vegetarian dietary preference. — Sibling preference record does not satisfy the religious-belief primary

Known false positives

Generic corporate or educational use of "believe"/"religion"/"religious" (values statements, history/comparative-religion content) has nothing to do with a personal belief-disclosure record. Mitigation: The regex targets full disclosure phrases and structured belief labels rather than the bare words "believe" or "religion"; enforcement requires a person-record context, and the high tier also requires a populated attribution or accommodation signal.